The morning crowd from Malaysia usually consisted of housewives.

They jumped onto rickety wooden boats from Bukit Lata, in northeastern Kelantan state, for a two-minute ride across the filthy Golok River to Pekan Mundok town in Thailand's insurgency-hit Narathiwat province.

But the housewives have stopped coming in recent days after Malaysia tightened its border, and business in this dusty, once-bustling Thai village has gone quiet.

The merchants - who sell everything from rice to wild birds and fishing equipment from dilapidated zinc-covered shops - worry Malaysia's crackdown on illegal border crossings will further undermine southern Thailand's impoverished economy.

And they say Thailand's proposal to extend a wall along the frontier will only worsen their plight.

Tighter security at the border came after Thailand's army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and his Malaysian counterpart Abdullah Ahmad Badawi agreed last month to boost their cooperation in a bid to end three years of separatist unrest in the south of the majority Buddhist kingdom.

There is no official border post at this town, and until recently residents on both sides could cross at will, albeit illegally. That has changed.

"Look, the Malaysian police (are) over there," Bakri Che Mat, 42, a Muslim Thai, said as he pointed to two Malaysian security personnel armed with M-16 rifles on the other side of the river.

"They have been there for a week now and Malaysians can no longer cross," Bakri said. "I do not know why the police are preventing Malaysians from coming here. It is safe here. No bombs here," he said.

Waiting for customers

Residents on the Thai side depended on income from their southern neighbours "for our survival," he added.

At their recent meeting, the Thai and Malaysian leaders said they would continue efforts to end dual nationality for people on both sides of the frontier.

Many southern Thais also hold a Malaysian passport, which security forces say makes it easier for insurgents to slip back and forth across the border to escape arrest.

Militants responded to the leaders' cooperation by staging almost 50 Lunar New Year bombings, shootings and arson attacks that left nine dead in the south, where a majority are Muslims like their Malaysian neighbours.

In the biggest clash since those bombings, at least eight separatist militants were killed Friday in a gun battle with Thai troops who raided an insurgent training camp in Narathiwat near the border, security officials said.

Walking on the deserted red-stone track, which passes for a main road around Pekan Mundok, leaves a visitor with an eerie feeling, as if one is being watched.

The town has only about 500 residents but close to 50 merchants, a testament to the amount of business that used to come from Malaysia. Now they can only sit around, waiting for customers who no longer come.

Hamid Harun, 60, who sells birds and fishing gear, said life was "really difficult now".

"I use to earn about RM300 daily, but now on some days, nothing at all," he said.

"Please don't let your Muslim brothers suffer," Hamid urged Malaysia, adding that trade links benefited people on both sides of the border.

Thailand has proposed extending a wall along the border in a bid to prevent insurgents from crossing, although the two prime ministers did not address the matter during their recent meeting.

Hamid said he opposed the building of a fence. "It will affect our lifestyle. We have relatives in Kelantan," he said.

Breaking the border culture

A lawmaker on the Malaysian side, Abdul Fatah Harun of the opposition Islamic party PAS, was also unhappy with suggestions to seal the border.

"I do not like the idea ... The economies and society of the border towns are interlinked," he said.

Bakri, who sells rice on the Thai said, said his daily revenue of about RM500 dropped by at least 70 percent in the past week.

"Tourists from Bangkok are not coming here because of security fears in the south and now Malaysians are not crossing over. We are as good as dead now," he said.

Then a Malaysian women with a red headscarf walked in and ordered a bag of rice. Bakri's eyes brightened. He had made his first sale of the day.

"My patrons like the Thai rice very much. It is cheap, tasty and hard. The Malaysian rice is soft," the elderly Malaysian woman said, declining to be identified.

"The police should not stop us from coming here. We have been doing this for decades. Our ties are not just economy. We have blood ties with Muslim Thais," she said.

On the other side of the river, a Malaysian policeman said recent bombings made it unsafe to travel into Thailand and he was just carrying out orders by trying to stop people from crossing.

"But as you can see, some continue to defy us. They have been doing this for years. My top officers do not understand this border culture. These two Muslim communities cannot be separated," he said.